According to the Public Authorities Law, nine of the LIPA's 15 trustees (including the chairman) must be gubernatorial appointees.

At the present, there are only 10 trustees, and only six of Cuomo's nine seats are filled. Three of the governor's trustees are serving on expired terms.

That means Cuomo, if he wanted to, could at this very moment make six appointees to the board.

But such appointments would establish Cuomo's relationship to LIPA, when, following Hurricane Sandy, all he seemed to want was distance.

In the aftermath of the storm, the governor channeled the public's rightful anger at the power company and its hamhanded efforts at restoring service to Long Island and the Rockaways.

Only in recent days, as recognition of Cuomo's own responsibility for LIPA has grown, and media criticism built, has the governor begun to take steps toward reform with the creation of the Moreland Commission, which can't directly compel action but which at the very least makes the dysfunction of the current system impossible for an image-conscious and famously savvy governor to ignore.

The commission is charged with examining the performance of every New York State utility and coming up with recommendations for ways to reform them.

LIPA's performance following Hurricane Sandy has been, by many accounts, abysmal, and its management ranks are filled with patronage appointees.

As Tracy Burgess-Levy, LIPA's community relations head, told the Times, "There are many, many people who have been placed at LIPA during my tenure here who have no utility experience or training in the job that they have been placed in."